Tax Me Thin

Rep. Millwood approached me in the House chamber, wondering if I was the reporter who had quoted him in an online story about his opposition to raising the cigarette tax.

An hour earlier, the 30-year-old Republican had railed on the House floor against lawmakers’ effort to override the governor’s veto of a 50-cent-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes.

During his tirade, the freshman Republican said: “Let’s go ahead and bump the cheeseburger up a buck, I mean, why not? ... This is what it’s coming to. If we’re going to vote for a 50-cent tax increase because we don’t want someone to do something, that’s called big government.”

Millwood had gestured to his own, um, heft during his time at the podium, confessing to his own tendency to have a cheeseburger every now and then.

“At least she called it my ‘girth’ instead of my ‘fat,’” he said afterward, recalling this article, and chuckling that he kept getting Google notifications that his name was popping up on the Internet.

Millwood had voted with the the losing side of the 90-29 vote to override Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of the cigarette-tax increase. The bill now goes to the Senate for the final test of whether the veto will be tossed aside.

So readers, what do you think? If we’re going to slap higher taxes on cigarettes, in part, to prevent people from picking up the habit, should we do the same to cheeseburgers? Tanning salons? Donuts?

Is this a slippery, partially homogenized slope we're standing on?

Here’s how your local legislator voted on whether to override the governor’s veto of the 50-cent-per-pack tax increase: (The highlighted stuff is just my notes on my circulation-area lawmakers)